Extensive work has been done in electrostatic chucks within the last ten years. An example is the chuck illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,055,964, issued to the International Business Machines Corporation.
A chuck adapted to avoid a problem in the prior art of excessive retention of clamping force after power is removed is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,103,367. That chuck uses an alternating current to avoid polarization of the dielectric.